Exploring Spoken English

Description: Exploring Spoken English is a practical guide to the features of natural spoken English, designed for teachers and advanced learners of English for use in groups and for self-study. The material consists of 20 varied extracts of authentic spoken English drawn from the Cambridge University Press and University of Nottingham corpus of spoken English. All the extracts are on an accompanying Audio CDs. Each unit contains an activity for the reader and a line-by-line commentary offering new insights into grammar, vocabulary and discourse patterns in the text. The accompanying CDs contain all the extracts, some re-recorded for the purposes of clarity.

Review: 'It does not happen all that often that you come across something that is almost totally new, but that is the case with Exploring Spoken English. This is an extraordinary work, not just because it addresses an aspect of language that has been practically ignored up to now, at least in a corpus-based treatment, but also because it is difficult, if not impossible to pigeonhole, combining the best of various kinds of books: it is the same time corpus, resource book, text book, and theoretical work.' 'Exploring Spoken English is absolutely riveting for anyone interested in real English, with every unit bringing new features of spoken English to your attention.' VVLE, 1997 'This book brings authenticity of spoken text to the fore, making us realise how important it is to provide the learners with the tools to cope with 'real-life' communication ... Perhaps a book such as this will provide the language teacher with the confidence to tackle such authenticity in the classroom.' NATESOL Newsletter 'The Nottingham language project continues to provide valuable resources for teaching and learning ... This book and tape, exciting in the newness of its format and stimulating for the range of its topics and contributors, is warmly recommended for advanced students and for teachers.' TESOL ANZ Newsletter, 1997 'I wholeheartedly welcome this book. It is a resource we've been waiting for, a collection of spoken discourse types for use both as listening practice and language analysis by the more advanced learner ... Each text is professionally recorded and transcribed in such a way that it is immediately accessible to even the most inexperienced teacher/learner of spoken discourse.' VATME Newsletter, 1997 'Exploring Spoken English is hugely informative and would be an undoubtedly valuable addition to the shelves of anyone concerned with oral interaction.' Issues, 1998

Contents: Contents; Introduction; Glossary of important terms; Notes on transcription; SECTION A NARRATIVE; Dangerous childhood pranks; Flying over Budapest; SECTION B IDENTIFYING; Two old friends meet up again; An elderly lady reminisces; SECTION C LANGUAGE IN ACTION; Doing a job; Cooking rice; SECTION D COMMENT/ ELABORATION; Family and relatives; Two teachers chatting; Students chatting round the tea-table; SECTION E SERVICE ENCOUNTERS; At the post office; Ordering food in a restaurant; At the hairdresser's; SECTION F DEBATE AND ARGUMENT; Local radio phone-in; Political debate; Student discussion; SECTION G LANGUAGE, LEARNING AND INTERACTION; School discussion; Kid's stuff; University tutorial group; SECTION H DECISION MAKING/ NEGOTIATING OUTCOMES; Planning a family holiday; Company business meeting; References; Index